A journey of a man trying to fight his Ooh! Shiney! addiction while painting interesting things at the same time....

donderdag 7 mei 2015

Blight Drones

From the Warhammer 40K Wiki:

"All things must wither and die. Let root rot and bower blight, to feed the pestilence of abandoned hope."

— Aghalor, the Bringer of Poxes

Blight Drones, also known as Bilecysts, are a Daemon Engine dedicated to the Chaos God of pestilence and disease, Nurgle.
The Blight Drone is a seemingly weird conglomeration of insect larva,
flying machine, and daemonic entity. The maddening, incessant droning
buzz of their rotor disks echoing across the battlefield has become
recognised as an omen of death by soldiers of the Imperium of Man. Stories from the maimed and rotting survivors of Blight Drone attacks are quick to spread through the ranks of Imperial Guard
regiments that engage them in battle, each story having negative
effects on morale and spreading fear and panic amongst the soldiers has
become a great concern for Commissars.
The threat to the morale and overall stability of a regiment has been
deemed so serious that any Guardsmen caught retelling these tales faces
immediate arrest and transportation to a penal unit.

History

The very first recorded contact between the armed forces of the Imperium and Blight Drones was during the Siege of Vraks, where the Blight Drones were encountered in large swarms fighting alongside the Vraksian Traitor Militia and their Chaos Space Marine
allies. The first sightings of Blight Drones, often recorded from the
tales of badly maimed survivors, led to their initial misidentification,
with some of them being labelled a conventional aircraft of some kind
or as massive Warp-mutated insects. Eventually, the savants of the Inquisition were able to piece together various pieces of evidence, and the truth that they were facing a new form of Daemon Engine
became abundantly clear. The creatures themselves were usually
encountered in large clusters or swarms, acting much in the manner of
carrion flies and ambush predators. The drones seemed to appear on the
battlefield where there were large concentrations of the dead as much as
they appeared to be ordered into combat by some unseen force. Whereever
the Daemon Engines passed the air grew thick with poisonous fumes and
the soil itself blistered and rotted.
There exist unconfirmed reports of Blight Drones coming down to
rest upon piles of corpses seemingly to feed, liquifying the carcasses
of the dead and the dying, and sucking up the decaying sludge, perhaps
to fuel themselves or maintain their presence in the physical universe.
There exists no evidence of Blight Drones landing anywhere or needing
any form of maintenance, nor did they ever return to any base of
operations.
Although the Blight Drone's first confirmed encounter with the Imperium was during the Siege of Vraks,
and their true origins remain unknown, it was far from the last. Since
the Siege of Vraks, Blight Drones have been encountered in several other
battles, notably fighting alongside Chaos Space Marine warbands such as the Purge and other Death Guard
splinter factions. Additionally, unconfirmed reports have placed these
obscene weapons as part of daemonic incursions in both the ongoing
conflicts in the Charadis Rifts war zone and the Auralis war zone, and
they were also sighted during the fall of Hive World Mitra, the invasion of Forge WorldGraia, and during the 13th Black Crusade.

Armament

The Blight Drone's macabre and deadly reputation was more than
matched in dreadful fact by their effectiveness on the battlefield. The
drone is armed with a Reaper Autocannon, and a Mawcannon. The Mawcannon is a smaller version of the weapon found on the mighty Soul Grinder
Daemon Engines, and fires out gouts of corrosive toxic bile that is
powerful enough to eat through metal and liquify flesh in seconds as
opposed to the Soul Grinder's preferred Warpfire. The bile from the
drone's Mawcannon was extremely effective against the entrenched
infantry and vehicles on Vraks,
while troops out in the open had little cover from the drone's Reaper
Autocannon. The creature's Mawcannon is also capable of spiting out
large roiling masses of mutating phlegm at a distance, destroying entire
enemy squads in one great blast. The Blight Drone's seemingly squat and
bloated form is also unusually resilient against attacks, especially
for a skimmer of their size. This quality is attributed to the living
flesh and rusted armour plating of the drone, as well as the will of
whatever dark intelligence is guiding them. If a Blight Drone is
destroyed in combat it invariably detonates in a shower of bile and pus,
and is capable of causing extreme damage to everything caught within
the blast.

Fun little critters, right?

To get it straight, I will not be making 1:1 copies of Blight Drones. I'll be making baby Blight Drones with standard armament and converted Plague Drones in the spirit of a Blight Drone with Blight Drone armament. They will look related :) As I'm no longer allowed to spend money, I should be able to spend all my time, energy and effort into these critters for some time to come.

While surfing the web, I found several fan made ones very inspirational, like these ones:

and

The last one is highly inspirational for the colourscheme, dirty white and rust.

I've also made the decision not to add surface detailing to the Baby Drones. It would take a ton of effort and I can do the same, in a lot less time, painting wise. The bigger Drones however will get the surface detailing.

Since I can't spend any money, my mate Mo has been happy to provide me with additional Rippers to base them on. For the Baby Drones, my inspiration comes from this artwork:

I will try to make each variant shown there, just because it will be fun, gives me more Baby Blight Drones and will look good on the table. And it will take time, time spent doing things that prevent me from spending money :) I already have it printed out next to me so I can leave off the PC and just get on with it!

I can do this !

And on a side note, I found a perfectly nice sketch for a possible Tau construction drone, jay me!

Hey Wouter, they are purely meant for Inquisitor, but I've always been a strong supporter of WYSIWYG, hence the bigger numbers with various weapon loadouts. I have 0 interest in doing 40K with them, but am looking at Pulp Alley and other skirmish games with roleplaying elements.

So do I! Sofar, some greenstuff and a simple toothpick seem to do the job quite nicely, and I picked up a old desklamp from my parents place to help it cure faster....as long as the lightbulb lasts that is. Where can you still buy those things?

True, but a LED bulb wouldn't generate the heat needed to speed the curing of the greenstuff. If you can't find the needed lightbulbs, you could try finding a halogen bulb, those things get quite hot as well...

I am trying to figure out some ideas for a slaanesh or Tzeentch demon engines. At lest not ones that are tanks or titan size that is.A few quick ides I spotted already are Wirewolfs.http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Wirewolf

I think they would be a cool project because its undivided. Any group can us them. And I think they would make it would be a nice 3 part project. Floating trigger Glyphs, And then Wirewolf in its in active and then active state.

I plane on making cultists of course, but would also like to have a group of Slaanesh pirates, with depraved buccaneers running amuck. Some armed with Nose weapons, others with close combat obsessed psychoses. But I want a nice mix, Its the god of pleasure and that includes gluttons so I want to some how make some gastronomically obsessed nut jobs with augmented mouths and such. Maybe some of the fantasy Ogre line might work for that guy. And A Doctor who is obsessed with drugs and meds, always looking for new subjects to test his creations on. Psi witchesAnd of course a cadre of Nobles and merchants who are in league with them.Then a few Empires children to finish the group off. I am thinking Reavers from the firefly series.

For Tzeentch I am thinking of delusional revolutionary's, they think life will be better with out the Imperium. Mostly twist gangs, led by rouge psychics. But that is just my ideas so far.

About me

I've started this blog to make sense of why I'm such a scatterbrain in hobby and in private, and to keep track of my many, many projects. I've since learned that I have Aspergers and must live under strickt rules lest everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Keeping a Blog is a immense help in preventing this.